???Anyone Here UpGrade From Yaqin/Cayin/etc... To Another Tube Amp Considered Hi End???

@freediver  I've had four or five Burson products over the years (160 D, Soloist, Virtuoso, Conductor V2+, and one more I think). They all drove my Audeze LCD 2.2, X, HD 800, Hifiman 400i and now Arya VERY well.  The DACs inside are pretty nice; far from the last word... But nice. The Preamp section of my V2+ was amazing. I took it over my buddy's place who has a passive with Audio Consulting wire and it held its own.

Not trying to be a you-know-what but I loved the headphone output of my Hegel driving my Arya so much, I sold the Burson. 

Enjoy!

Oh, and built like a tank. 

I went from Consonance EL34 70 watt PP A/B monoblocks to Art Audio EI KT90 50 watt stereo Class A PP. The difference was a more refined, detailed sound probably due to higher quality output transformers. The Consonance output transformers are noisy. Output transformers are one of the most important things in a tube amplifier design.

devilboy. "The DACs inside are pretty nice; far from the last word... But nice. "
Your kidding?There is NO better DAC Chip on the market today.
"

The Conductor uses the SABRE32/ESS9038Q2M DAC and XMOS USB receiver chips, the most advanced and expensive in the industry. Its Customised USB driver by Thesycon Germany ensures low latency bit-perfect audio playback. The result is incredible processing power, accurately playing back DSD512 and 38bit/786khz audio.

It also features a Qualcomm/CSR8675 Bluetooth 5.0 receiver. Playing back at 24bit/96khz with aptX HD audio codec. , it pushes sound quality and ease of use to the highest level."
So how do you figure they are just ok?

@hifijunky Awesome that you have the Art Audio amps. If you ever need anything, PM me. I am the importer for AA now and am always here to help.

@freediver Congratulations on the Icon purchase.  I am sure you will be super happy.  

Regarding DACs, the Burson is lovely, especially for the price. DAC chips though are not the sole driver of DAC quality. Chip and implementation of the Chip have a huge impact. Burson is great at this and for Chip DACs, outstanding.

However, you will find there is more than one way to skin a cat. There are FPGA units from people like Chord and PS Audio that don’t use Burr Brown/Wolfson/Cirrus/Sabre chips at all and use software based solutions. There are R2R Dacs that don’t use chips from brands like Rockna that are brilliant. Like anything, opinions are subjective, but many feel these other approaches are far superior to the chip approach implemented by many manufacturers. These also tend to be a lot more expensive though there are exceptions like the Chord Qutest which is quite affordable. 

In the end, it is a matter of taste, but have faith that in the never ending pursuit of audio perfection (and to get us all to spend more money) someone will find a way to make something that is better or at least different.